


Separate Ways

by Missy



Category: Venture Bros
Genre: Bittersweet, Bus Stops, Chance Meetings, Friendship, Gen, Rain, Reunions
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-09-30
Updated: 2012-09-30
Packaged: 2017-11-15 07:59:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 821
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/524977
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Missy/pseuds/Missy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A chance meeting at a bus shelter reunites Triana with Dean, a year after the conclusion of the events of season 4.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Separate Ways

**Author's Note:**

> Written for Cottoncandy_Bingo: Prompt: Lonely/Loneliness

It was coming down. Triana wiped her palm across the window of the diner and let out a long groan; she would have to walk back home through this mess in her brand-new leatherette boots. 

Lingering over the coffee, she measured the distance from the curb to the bus stop. She could do the easiest thing – conjure herself across the street, back to her apartment. But it was so cliche just to do the easiest thing. Triana was a striver – or so her father said proudly. She would walk the short but endlessly chill and damp way home.

The purple-frilled umbrella would do for shelter, keeping her dry from the early-fall rain. Leaves stuck like flypaper to the bottom of her shoe and she scraped them clean with a grunt on the curb as she arrived at the bus stop.

Ducking into the shelter, she offered an apologetic smile to the red-haired man sitting toward the furthest side of the bench. “It’s coming down out there. I hope I don’t get you wet.” 

“It’s okay if you do.”

Triana stopped in her tracks at the sound of that familiar voice. It brought her back to the last night they’d been together, to a burning symbol on her lawn and a bouquet smashed against his temple. “Hey…Dean.” She automatically edged away from his hunched form, then looked down at her blue milkmaid costume. “Before you ask, no, I’m not seconding for Mega Maid.” He didn’t say anything, and to avoid what she knew would be a veritable flood of tears and recrimination, she said, “I’m going to walk…”

“Oh please don’t go,” he said quickly, jerking himself into a less threatening posture. “I’m really, really sorry about that night. It’s been so long since then - I was kind of hoping you’d forgotten about it.”

Triana grunted. Men never seemed to understand their own threatening behavior, that being so forceful with a woman tended to earn them permanent black marks in the mental record. On the other hand this was Dean, who was nearly total in his innocence. 

He squirmed. “Triana?”

“What?”

“I didn’t mean to bump into you.”

Those words were enough to soften Triana’s stance. “How have you been doing at Northwestern?”

And so, for the first time in years, they sat down and had a real discussion. She learned that Dean was still pounding the pavements of New York, looking for a backer for his musical; during the week he was home in Colorado with HELPER and Brock, working with dignitaries as Venture Industry’s official spokesman - and as a replacement for his father, who had run off to Venezuela with a pregnant woman named Candy. He heard about her graduate studies, how her mother had been tutoring her in the ways of sorcery, how she had fled Colorado to make her own way, about the grimy greasy spoon she worked at, and her plan to become the sort of sorceress her dad would be proud of.

Neither of them noticed when the bus arrived, and it took the blaring of the driver’s horn to shake them from their camaraderie. Triana laughed, excused herself, and stood.

“You can come with me,” he offered. “My hotel’s right around the corner…”

She shook her head. “We’ve got to go our own way.”

He didn’t cry. He didn’t pout. Just gave her a gallant and noble nod. 

But as she moved, he caught her hand. “Triana?” he asked, a hint of the young boy who had once worshipped her peeking out from the eyes of the man.

“What?” she wondered. Dean gave her a gentle smile, released his grip and held out the palm that had grasped her. It took Triana a moment to realize he wanted to kiss her. It took a moment of reasoning to herself before she gave permission. Cautiously, she offered her palm to his lips. 

He pecked it, then held her limb close and warm, the white slip of bone and flesh pressed still between his palms. Then his hold slackened, and Triana’s hand fell, quietly, limply, to her side. Dean’s smile was awkward, fond, but not manic. 

Still wearing that smile, he dipped his hat. “Goodbye, fair Triana.” The words had the power of release behind them, of an odd hope. They could be friends now – could meet each other again with ease. Dean had always belonged to a different, more romantic world – one she could never see but one that suited him the best – and part of her was glad to have access once more to it.

Dean replaced his rain-soaked hat as a black stretch limo pulled up, and Triana entered the bus. She motored back home, and he drove back to the house he had taken from his father and remade into a beautiful life of his very own, both of them running away from the loneliness that had grayed their days.

THE END


End file.
